Men’s long jumper Yuki Hashioka (25, Fujitsu) is one of the athletes to watch again at the Japan Athletics Championships (June 27-30, Niigata). In the long jump, if you run fast, you can jump farther, as Carl Lewis (USA), who once set the 100m world record, did by winning four consecutive Olympic gold medals. However, if you run fast, your takeoff will be “crushed,” so most athletes run at a slower speed. Hashioka, who has won prizes at the Olympics and the World Championships, is taking on this challenge, and he got a good feeling at the Golden Grand Prix (GGP) in May. He intends to use the Japan Championships not only to win and qualify for the Paris Olympics, but also as a stepping stone to aiming for a medal.

GGP made a big leap despite fouls on the fifth and sixth shots

Hashioka’s smile returned. At the GGP held at the National Stadium on May 19th, he came in 4th (1st place for a Japanese athlete) with a jump of 7.97m, losing to 3 foreign athletes, but he commented several times that “it was a jump that will lead to the next one.”

“I’m really disappointed that I fouled on the first two shots. It affected me until the end, but even with the fouls (on the fifth and sixth shots), I was able to make good jumps. It’s not as good as I had hoped, but I can still get a passing grade.”

If the third attempt had been a foul, the match would have ended without a record. It would have been a negative factor if he was thinking about competing in the Olympics and World Championships. However, by jumping 7.94m in the third attempt, he was able to advance to the second half of the three attempts. He improved his record to 7.97m in the fourth attempt, and went even further in the fifth, but grimaced when he realized it was a foul. For the sixth foul, he slammed the sand on his hands into the sandbox.

The winner was this year’s Asian indoor champion Zhang Minggun (23, China). It must have been frustrating to lose 16cm to a younger athlete who jumped his personal best of 8.13m. However, he managed to beat Marquis Dendy (31, USA), winner of the Diamond League Suzhou tournament in April, and Lin Yutang (24, Chinese Taipei), winner of last year’s Asian Championships (8.40m), within 10cm of each other.

According to a person involved, the distance reached was around 8.40m, the Japanese record, after the fifth and sixth fouls. Hashioka’s personal best is 8.36m (21 years), the second best in Japan’s history, but there is a possibility that he will break the Japanese record at the Japan Championships.